NEPC Topic Experts on Teacher Evaluation

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, a former middle- and high-school mathematics teacher, received her Ph.D. in 2002 from Arizona State University (ASU) from the Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with an emphasis on Research Methods. Awarded tenure in 2010 as an ASU Presidential Exemplar, and promoted again in 2016, she is currently a Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at ASU. Her research interests include educational policy, research methods, educational measurement, test (ab)uses, and value-added measurements and systems. In addition, she researches aspects of teacher and school quality as well as program and personnel evaluation.

Email Audrey Amrein-Beardsley at: audrey.beardsley@asu.edu

Derek Black is one of the nation’s foremost experts in education law and policy.  He focuses on educational equality, school funding, the constitutional right to education, segregation, and the federal role in schools. He has published over thirty scholarly articles in the nation’s top legal journals, including the flagship journals at Yale, Stanford, New York University, California-Berkeley, Cornell, Northwestern and Vanderbilt. That work has been cited several times in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It has also drawn him into litigation disputes over school funding and federal policy, where he has served as an expert witness and consultant.

He is currently a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina, where he holds the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law and directs the Constitutional Law Center. He began his career in teaching at Howard University School of Law, where he founded and directed the Education Rights Center. Prior to teaching, he litigated education cases at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.   

Email Derek Black at: blackdw@law.sc.edu

Derek Briggs is a professor of quantitative methods and policy analysis and chair of the Research and Evaluation Methodology program at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Dr. Briggs’s long-term research agenda focuses upon building sound methodological approaches for the measurement and evaluation of growth in student learning. His daily agenda is to challenge conventional wisdom and methodological chicanery as they manifest themselves in educational research, policy and practice. He has a special interest in the use of learning progressions as a method for facilitating student-level inferences about growth, and helping to bridge the use of test scores for formative and summative purposes. Other interests include critical analyses of the statistical models used to make causal inferences about the effects of teachers, schools and other educational interventions on student achievement.

Email Derek Briggs at: derek.briggs@colorado.edu

Madhabi Chatterji is Professor of Measurement, Evaluation, and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she founded and directs the Assessment and Evaluation Research Initiative (AERI, www.tc.edu/aeri), a center dedicated to promoting meaningful use of assessment and evaluation information, internationally and across disciplines.  Her research and teaching interests lie broadly in assessment-evaluation methodology. Specifically, her work has focused on instrument design, construct validation and validity issues; evidence standards and the evidence debate; a diagnostic model of classroom assessment; and assessment policy issues in K-12 education, health and psychology, including the topics of educational equity and standards based reforms. She is co-editor of Quality Assurance in Education, an international journal in educational evaluation, and is a member of the university-wide Faculty Steering Committee of the Columbia Global Center-South Asia.

Email Madhabi Chatterji at mb1434@tc.columbia.edu

Sean P. Corcoran is Associate Professor of Public Policy & Education, and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Corcoran conducts research in applied microeconomics, specifically the economics of education and state and local public finance. His published papers have examined long-run trends in teacher quality, the impact of income inequality and school finance reform on education funding in the United States, the properties of “value-added” measures of teacher effectiveness, and the high school choices of middle school students in New York City. Together with colleagues at Princeton, Columbia, and Seton Hall, he recently fielded several large-scale randomized controlled trials of information supports for school choice in NYC.

Email Sean P. Corcoran at: sean.p.corcoran@vanderbilt.edu 

Amy Farley is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership & Policy Studies program within the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses broadly on equity in P-20 education systems and how consequential K-12 and postsecondary policies impact educational opportunity. She pays particular attention to school and university reform; high-stakes policies, including those regarding data use, measurement, and assessment; and the disparate impact of policies on minoritized student and teacher populations. Before becoming a faculty member, Amy worked as a K-12 educator and a Strategic Data Fellow through Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research, where she worked closely with state and local agencies to conduct research and provide technical assistance regarding the implementation of education policies and reforms related to standards, educator evaluation, and student assessment.

Email Amy Farley at: farleyay@ucmail.uc.edu

Edward García Fierros (he, him, el), is Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Villanova University. Fierros is Associate Professor of Education in the Department of Education and Counseling at Villanova. Fierros, a first-generation college graduate completed his doctoral degree in Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. His expertise includes testing and measurement, diversity and equity in assessment, multiple intelligences theory, and educational policy related to underrepresented students. Fierros has written numerous journal articles and co-authored Multiple Intelligences: Best Ideas from Research and Practice (2004; with Kornhaber and Veenema). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Email Edward García Fierros at: edward.fierros@villanova.edu

Pat Hinchey is Professor Emerita of Education at Penn State. She is experienced in a wide variety of teaching situations and in conducting professional development for both in-service teachers and her faculty colleagues. Her research interests center on issues of equity and the undermining of education for democracy. Having written extensively on the translation of critical theory to classroom practice, more recently she has turned her attention to teacher assessment and proposals for restructuring the teaching profession.  Pat's most recent book, Getting to Where We Meant to Be: Working Toward the Educational World We Imagine/d, analyzes the common assumptions related to the various futures imagined for K-12 education. 

Email Patricia H. Hinchey at: pxh12@psu.edu

Dr. Kevin Kumashiro (https://www.kevinkumashiro.com) is the founding chair of the national network, Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE).  He is an internationally recognized expert on educational policy, school reform, teacher preparation, and educational equity and social justice, with a wide-ranging list of accomplishments and awards as a scholar, educator, leader, and advocate.  Dr. Kumashiro is the former Dean of the Schools of Education at the University of San Francisco and Hofstra University, and is the award-winning author or editor of ten books, including Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning toward Social Justice, and most recently, Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education. His recent awards include the 2016 Social Justice in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Email Kevin K. Kumashiro at: kevin@kevinkumashiro.com

Francesca López, PhD is the Waterbury Chair in Equity Pedagogy at Penn State University, College of Education, Curriculum and Instruction Department. Her research focuses on the ways educational settings promote achievement for marginalized youth.  It has been funded by the American Educational Research Association Grants Program, the Division 15 American Psychological Association Early Career Award, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Email Francesca López at: falopez@psu.edu

Gary Miron is professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University. He has extensive experience evaluating school reforms and education policies. Over the past two decades he has conducted several studies of school choice programs in Europe and in the United States, including nine state evaluations of charter school reforms. In recent years, his research has increasingly focused on the education management organizations (EMOs) and efforts to create systemic change in urban schools in Michigan and rural schools in Louisiana. Prior to coming to Western Michigan University, Dr. Miron worked for 10 years at Stockholm University in Sweden.


Email Gary Miron at: garmiron@gmail.com

Tel. 269-599-7965

Margaret Terry Orr is an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership, Administration and Policy Division of Fordham University. Previously, she was on the faculty of Bank Street College of Education, where she directed the Future School Leaders Academy, a two-year, dual certification leadership preparation program in partnership with 30+ school districts. In her prior work, she was an associate professor of Educational Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University and a senior research associate at the Academy for Educational Development (now FHI 360).

Dr. Orr has conducted a great number of regional and national studies over the last 35 years on leadership preparation approaches and school and district reform initiatives, and has published numerous books and articles. Her books address effective approaches to leadership preparation and development. Her articles on preparation program effects demonstrated the influence of preparation on leadership practices and school improvement work.

Email Margaret Terry Orr at: morr4@fordham.edu

Mark Paige is a professor at UMASS - Dartmouth. He researches legal issues in education and their educational policy dimensions, focusing In particular on how the law relates to teacher evaluation, collective bargaining, public school finance, as well as special education law. He received a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has practiced school law for several years and has published widely in the field, including several articles in law review journals. Prior to his career in academia, he was a public school teacher.

Email Mark Paige at: mpaige@umassd.edu

Jesse Rothstein is Associate Professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy and the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.   His research focuses on education and tax policy, and particularly on the way that public institutions ameliorate or reinforce the effects of children’s families on their academic and economic outcomes. His recent work includes studies of the evaluation of teacher quality using student achievement data; the design of incentive compensation contracts for teachers; the role of family income in the black-white test score gap; and the effects of unemployment insurance on job search.  His work has been published in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, among other outlets. He has a Ph.D. in economics and a Masters in Public Policy, both from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Email Jesse Rothstein at: rothstein@berkeley.edu

Robert Shand is an Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Leadership at American University and an affiliated researcher with the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. A former high school economics and government teacher, his interests lie at the intersection of research, policy and practice. His current research focuses on teacher improvement through collaboration and professional development and how schools and teachers use data from economic evaluation and accountability systems to make decisions and improve over time. Recent work at CBCSE has emphasized the unique opportunities and methodological challenges of evaluating complex partnership programs, including the university-school-community partnership Raising Educational Achievement Coalition of Harlem, and the comprehensive student support program, City Connects. He is a co-author of the third edition of Economic Evaluation in Education: Cost-Effectiveness and Benefit-Cost Analysis, and he has contributed to publications in the American Journal of Evaluation, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness.

Email Robert Shand at: rshand@american.edu

Lorrie Shepard is Distinguished Professor and Dean Emerita in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on psychometrics and the use and misuse of tests in educational settings. In addition to technical work on validity theory, standard setting, and statistical models for detecting test bias, her studies evaluating test use have addressed the identification of learning disabilities, readiness screening for kindergarten, grade retention, teacher testing, and effects of high-stakes accountability testing on teaching and learning. Her current work focuses on curriculum-embedded format assessment practices. She served as President of the American Educational Research Association, the National Council on Measurement in Education, and the National Academy of Education.

Email Lorrie Shepard at: lorrie.shepard@colorado.edu

Mark Weber is the Special Analyst for Education Policy at the New Jersey Policy Perspective, and a Lecturer at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where he earned his PhD. Weber also works as a public school teacher in Warren Township, NJ. His research projects include the School Finance Indicators Database, the nation’s most comprehensive source of school finance data and analysis. In addition to many journal articles and book chapters, Weber has authored many education policy briefs, including works for the Shanker Institute, the Education Law Center, the Fordham Foundation, and others. Weber’s research concentrates on school choice, school finance, teacher preparation and quality, and arts education, with a particular focus on equity. 

Email Mark Weber at: mark.weber@gse.rutgers.edu

Ed Wiley is a senior executive with over 20 years of building, leading, and advising world-class machine learning, AI, and data science teams at companies at stages from startup to Fortune 50. His research interests center around Big Data and advanced statistical analytics, systems of school accountability, teacher quality and compensation, and school choice - initiatives central to the current atmosphere of standards-based testing.

Email Ed Wiley at: ewiley@stanfordalumni.org